The  booklet  entitled  "Soldiers  of  the  Wooden 
Cross”  by  Charles . H.^JBrent,  Senior  Staff  Chaplain 
of  the  A-ffTFl,  “Has  Veen  published  by  the  General 
War-Time  Commission  of  the  Churches  for  distribu¬ 
tion  to  the  mothers,  fathers,  relatives  and 
friends  of  the  soldiers  and  sailors  who  have  made 
the  supreme  sacrifice  during  the  war.  They  are 
offered  to  the  denominational  war-time  commissions 
with  their  own  imprint  at  the  rate  of  $5.00  per 
hundred  with  the  hope  that  orders  will  be  sent. 


General  War-Time  Commission  of  the  Churches 
(Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in  America) 
105  East  Twenty-second  Street 
New  York 


Soldiers  of  the 
Wooden  Cross 

By 

Charles  H.  Brent 

Senior  Staff  Chaplain  of  the  A.  E.  F. 


Address  delivered  at  the  Memorial  Services 
held  with  the 

305th ,  506th  and  307th  Infantry  Regiments 
Chateau  Villain ,  January  5,  1919 


“I  feel  how  weak  and  fruitless  must  he 
any  words  of  mine  which  should  at - 
tempt  to  beguile  you  from  the  grief  of 
a  loss  so  overwhelming.  I  pray  that 
our  Heavenly  Father  may  assuage 
the  anguish  of  your  bereavement  and 
leave  you  only  the  cherished  memory 
of  the  loved  and  lost,  and  the  solemn 
pride  that  must  be  yours  to  have  laid 
so  costly  a  sacrifice  upon  the  Altar 
of  Freedom.”— A.  Lincoln. 


Soldiers  of  the  "Wooden  Cross 


lips  of  a  British  war  poet,  before  they 
^  j  were  hushed  in  death  by  the  battle’s 
stern  lullaby,  were  stung  into  song  in 
an  immortal  sonnet: 

“  If  1  should  die,  think  only  this  of  me : 

There  is  some  corner  of  a  foreign  field 
That  is  forever  England .” 

^  Rupert  Brooke  here  gives  the  keynote  of 
the  soldiers  who  have  earned  by  the  supreme 
sacrifice  the  highest  and  proudest  of  all  decora¬ 
tions,  the  Wooden  Cross.  Medals  that  adorn 
the  uniform  tell  of  courage  and  endurance  and 
heroism  that  braved  the  worst  for  the  cause. 
Their  wearers  live  to  hear  the  acclaim  of  their 
comrades.  But  there  is  another  decoration, 
the  commonest  even  though  the  most  distin¬ 
guished — the  Wooden  Cross — that  is  awarded 
only  to  the  men  who  have  done  the  greatest 
thing  that  man  —  yes,  even  God — can  do. 


“Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  this,  that  he 
lay  down  his  life  for  his  friends.” 

IJ  Now  that  “grinvvisaged  war  has  smoothed  his 
wrinkled  front,”  we  gather  to  pay  simple  homage 
to  our  comrades  who  have  the  supreme  d.istin- 
guishment  of  the  Wooden  Cross.  Yonder  they 
lie,  along  that  front  where,  with  face  to  the  foe, 
they  counted  not  their  lives  dear  unto  them¬ 
selves  but  bore  the  standard  of  liberty  onward. 
Above  their  graves  rise  the  sheltering  arms  of 
the  roughhewn  Cross  than  which  no  fitter  monu¬ 
ment  ever  reared  its  form  over  mortal  remains. 

Q  Our  comrades  they  were.  Our  comrades 
they  are.  Death  was  powerless  in  the  face  of 
their  bold  daring  to  rob  us  of  them  or  them  of 
us.  They  are  separated  now  from  us,  not  by 
the  gaping  gulf  of  time  but  by  a  veil  so  thin  that 
at  times  we  almost  see  their  figures  through  its 
waving  folds.  They  live — live  gloriously  in  the 
land  of  far  distances.  Death  stripped  them  of 
nothing  essential.  In  the  permanent  society 
of  the  world  beyond  this  they  think  and  speak 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Columbia  University  Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/soldiersofwoodenOObren 


and  see  and  love.  They  are  what  they  were,  ex¬ 
cept  so  far  as  the  river  of  death  has  washed  away 
the  dust  of  earth  and  left  them  cleaner  and  bet¬ 
ter  by  reason  of  this,  their  last  great  adventure. 
They  keep  pace  with  us  and  we  must  keep  pace 
with  them. 

“  One  Army  of  the  living  Qod, 

To  His  command  we  bow; 

Part  of  the  host  has  crossed  the  flood, 

And  part  is  crossing  now.” 

CJ  We  cannot  rehearse  the  story  of  each  one’s 
going  as  he  went  over  the  top  to  meet  the  foe 
and  found  his  rendezvous  with  death  on  shell- 
scarred  slope  or  battered  hill,  or  in  some  flaming 
town  or  maze  of  tangled  wire.  The  same  daunt¬ 
less  spirit  moved  them,  one  and  all.  There  was 
something  dearer  than  life.  To  it  they  gave 
themselves  and  their  all,  and  won  the  decoration 
of  the  Wooden  Cross.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a 
Chaplain  whose  unstudied  cry,  as  the  finger  of 
death  touched  him,  was:  “  Father,  I  thank  Thee 
for  this  affliction.”  Not  that  he  courted  pain 
as  in  itself  a  blessing,  but  as  an  opportunity  to 


show  God  and  men  that  he  was  able  in  all  things 
to  be  a  super-victor.  Now  it  is  not  a  Chaplain 
but  a  doughboy  that  is  smitten.  “Buddy, ”  says 
his  comrade  who  holds  him  while  his  life  rushes 
out  in  a  crimson  flood,  “  Buddy,  have  you  any 
message  for  the  folks  at  home?”  “Yes,”  is  the 
prompt  reply  of  the  dying  Galahad,  “Tell  them 
I  went  as  clean  as  I  came.”  Again,  look  at  that 
stiff,  silent  body,  much  of  the  glory  of  its  splen¬ 
did  manhood  still  lingering  behind  as  though 
loath  to  abandon  the  well-knit  form.  Death  in 
him  is  not  ugly  nor  repulsive.  His  left  hand  still 
clutches  the  bosom  of  his  shirt  which  he  tore 
aside  in  order  that  his  right  hand  might  hold 
through  death  his  crucifix,  the  symbol  of  his 
faith.  He,  though  dead,  speaketh: 

“  Nothing  in  my  hand  1  bring 
Simply  to  Thy  Cross  1  cling.” 

These  men  and  a  myriad  more  are  calling  to 
us,  calling  to  us  and  bidding  us  to  carry  on.  If 
we  would  still  hold  to  their  comradeship  we 
must  display  in  life  the  spirit  they  displayed  in 
death.  We  must  live  for  the  things  for  which 


they  died.  They  “went  West”  beyond  the  sun. 
Soon  in  another  sense  shall  we,  please  God,  go 
West — west  across  the  sea — to  that  dear  land, 
America,  that  is  impatient  for  the  pressure  of 
our  feet.  We  must  make  ourselves  fit  to  meet, 

with  unshamed  brow,  wife,  sweetheart,  sister, 
mother.  Our  going  may  not  be  to  lower  our 

sense  of  service  and  look  for  any  reward  except 
opportunity  to  serve  again  and  better.  Patiot- 
ism  finds  in  war  only  a  starting  point  for  peace. 
That  which  we  have  achieved  by  victory  we 
must  weave  into  the  fabric  of  the  new  world 
and  the  new  age.  The  Wooden  Cross  of  our 
dead  comrades  is  for  them  a  glorious  decoration. 
For  us  it  is  the  banner  of  our  life  that  is  to  be. 
It  challenges  us  to  hold  more  precious  than 
mortal  life  ideals  of  honor,  justice  and  righteous¬ 
ness.  After  all,  the  Cross  that  redeemed  the 
world  was  a  wooden  cross,  too,  was  it  not  ?  It 
was  no  toy  nor  pretty  bauble,  but  a  thing  of 
nails  and  pain  and  death — and  yet  a  thing  of 
glory.  According  to  its  pattern  we  shape  our 


own  cross. 


The  Abbott  Press,  N.  Y. 


